


Professional Development

by JohnAmendAll



Category: Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Bound Together, Cake Fic Meme, Gen, Trope Bingo Round 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 02:57:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2756993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnAmendAll/pseuds/JohnAmendAll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once, Karen was just Lucie's friend at work. Now, she's her bitter enemy. Lucie knows what the next stage has to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Professional Development

**Author's Note:**

> For the trope_bingo 'bound together' square.

The storeroom was grim, chilly, and had definitely not been designed with the comfort of prisoners in mind. Not for the first time, Karen shifted her position, vainly trying to find some way of putting space between her and Lucie, and at the same time keep the rack they were both chained to from digging into her back. 

"Hey!" Lucie said at once. "Stop wriggling!" 

Karen's resolve to ignore Lucie, which had been crumbling ever since their clothes had been confiscated and the gyves had first closed around their wrists, finally snapped. 

"I don't take orders from a fat slapper like you!" she snapped. "This is all your fault!" 

"Now I've heard it all," Lucie said. The sound of metal on metal continued unabated, as she dragged her chains to and fro, trying to wear them away against the edge of the rack. "How's it my fault?" 

"Because if you hadn't showed up I'd have taken over this stupid shop hours ago! Why'd you have to come and interfere?" 

"I came in here to buy an iced bun. You know, the sort of thing normal people do in a bakery. What d'you want to take over a bakery for, anyway?" 

"It's part of my continuous professional development. Level Two IVQ." 

Lucie actually laughed at that, which didn't do anything to improve Karen's temper. 

"You mean you actually do exams?" she asked. "So you can prove to people just how evil a skank you are?" 

If Karen hadn't been chained up, and if they hadn't both been naked, she'd probably have launched herself at her tormentor. As it was, she had to content herself with clenching her fists. 

"I'm doing the Extreme Management track," she said. "The Headhunter said it was where I could best develop my talents. She said I should walk this." 

"Yeah," Lucie said. "I can see you've got those bakery blokes right where you want them." 

"It was going fine till you walked through the door!" Karen tried to shift her position again. "Getting taken prisoner's an automatic fail. I'll have to save up for a retake now. And why did they have to take our clothes? If I had my jacket we could've got out in no time." 

"And that's why they took our clothes," Lucie pointed out. "What's so special about your jacket, anyway?" 

"There's a hacksaw blade hidden in the lining. And picklocks in the cuffs." 

"No wonder they locked you up, then. Good job you didn't bring a gun." 

Karen, to her chagrin, felt herself blushing. 

"You all right?" Lucie asked. "You've gone all pink." 

"Stop looking at me!" 

"Not much else to look at in here." Lucie turned her head away by a token amount. "So why don't you have a gun? Doesn't your boss let you have one? Or do you have to pass exams for that too?" 

"I don't have to tell you anything." 

"Nope, but you want to. Otherwise you'd have kept your mouth shut." 

Karen ground her teeth. "Bet your precious Doctor wouldn't let you have a gun," she said. 

"You really don't get it, do you? I'm not trying to be you. I don't need a gun or a lockpick or a crowbar hidden in me knickers. I don't go around trying to take over shops that haven't done anything to me." 

"They've done something to you now." 

"Only 'cos I was trying to stop you." Lucie sounded positively upbeat. "Hey, does that make me your personal archnemesis?" 

"No!" Karen said, suspiciously quickly. 

"Really? You don't have to do a personal archnemesis module or anything?" 

"...I'm not saying." 

"Bloody hell, you do, don't you?" The rhythmic metallic scraping briefly faltered. "Do you have to have me picture under your pillow? Or on a chain round your neck? And come up with plots all the time to humiliate me? And all the time you're cursing me but you secretly sort of fancy me, cos I'm the only person who might understand how you feel?" 

"You seem to know a lot about archnemesisses," Karen said acidly. 

"Yeah, travelling with the Doctor you get to see a lot of that. There's this bloke called the Master. You'd like him. Or maybe get a massive crush on him. So, when you've done your Lucie Miller module can I read it?" 

"No you can't!" 

"Then you know what I'll think it says, don't you?" Lucie winked at Karen. "Of course, maybe you won't get that far." 

"I sodding well will. And you can't stop me." 

"It must be horrible to be you," Lucie said. The sounds of scraping metal suddenly ceased. "Hey, can you pull on your chain a bit?" 

"Why?" 

"'Cos I think it's coming loose." 

"Chance'd be a fine thing," Karen said, but nonetheless she pulled at the chains with all her might. With a sound of rending wood and metal, something came loose — and, bereft of an important prop, the shelves tipped forwards. Cakes, tarts, buns, scones and other baked goods rained down on Lucie and Karen, half-burying them in comestibles. This was followed by a positive avalanche of fine white powder. 

"Oh, sugar!" Lucie exclaimed. 

Karen licked her lips. "Yeah," she said. "It is." 

She risked a look in Lucie's direction, and couldn't help bursting out laughing at her one-time colleague. Most of Lucie was lost to sight under the heap of baked goods, but her head and shoulders were still visible. In particular, her head was now topped by a chocolate cake, like some particularly unsuccessful milliner's experiment. Her attempts to dislodge it by shaking her head this way and that merely seemed to have tipped it to a jaunty angle. 

"You know what?" Lucie said, once Karen had stopped laughing. "These chains still won't budge. I think we must've cut through the wrong bit. This isn't just an automatic fail. It's got to be something worse. Catastrophic fail, maybe." She paused as a further thought struck her. "Do you think they're filming all this on CCTV? Maybe we'll end up on some sort of 'Universe's daftest criminals' show." 

"I wish you hadn't said that." 

"Sorry." Lucie tried to shift position, and grimaced. "Yuck. I've got date and walnut loaf right where it doesn't belong. At least they'd just better be walnuts." 

"Serve you right." 

"You're all heart. Actually at the moment you're all cake, but at least with that treacle tart where it is I don't have to look at that stupid tattoo of yours any more." 

Karen bridled. "What about my tattoo?" 

"The TARDIS translates all languages," Lucie pointed out patiently. "So I can see what it says." 

"I _know_ what it says," Karen said. "'Sophisticated Beauty.'" 

Lucie shook her head. "Maybe that's what they told you it said. But what I read was 'Cheap and not too fussy.' They saw you coming all right." She smirked at Karen's thunderous expression. "Maybe you could take over whatever tattoo parlour it was did it. Seeing as how a bakery's out of your league." 

"Lucie," Karen said, in something close to desperation, "if you don't shut up right now I'm going to shut you up." 

"How? Seeing as how we're still chained up and you can't move your — ow!" 

Karen had tugged hard on the chain, forcing Lucie back against the rack. She leaned forward, until their sugar-dusted lips were almost touching. 

"Oh, I can think of plenty to do to you," she said, keeping her voice cold and steely. "And if I have to, I'll do it. You know that. Don't you?" 

There was a long pause before Lucie quietly said "Yeah," and fell silent. 

Letting out a long breath, Karen drew back and tried once more to find a comfortable position, though the welter of baked goods surrounding her — and in some cases sticking to her — made this an even less likely prospect than before. 

She was almost sure, though, that Lucie had whispered one last word, or just shaped it on her lips. 

_Archnemesis._

Apprehension began to creep over Karen. Her present predicament was bad enough, but the dark suspicion was forming in her mind that she'd never be free of Lucie Miller. And after today's fiasco, it was looking more and more likely that Karen would have to do that particular module. With all the optional assignments. 

Resignedly, she made a mental note to get hold of a picture of Lucie to keep under her pillow.


End file.
